Arche Hellenike
Arche Philhellenike is a major faction in the Cyan Sphere of Doom universe. Starcraft-like Origins Exodus Also see: Kallistrata Pellaia The origins of the first populations of Arche Philhellenike came in a fashion very much like those who settled on Koprulu Sector in Starcraft Universe, meaning the populations were made of exiles unwanted by the major power in Terra, the Socivm Amicorvm. However, unlike the Starcraft counterpart, the founders of Arche Philhellenike were alone, and were under the leadership of Kallistrata, who was also the first fully sentient android built whose class is dubbed Strategoi, as the development took place in Greece, and were designed primarily to be used in military purposes. The exiles landed on its capital world Meizotere Hellas in G2036, and cities developed quickly given the capital stored within the ships. As they were united under Kallistrata, the fledging exiles quickly developed a utopian society based on socialism and democracy. Combining the downtoning of the social scope of government with political dissidents of Socivm Amicorvm, Meizotere Hellas quickly became a cradle of utopian societies running under different principles, something that Kallistrata was happy to see as Kallistrata wished to study the actual applications of different political ideologies. Birth of the Arche Meizotere Hellas was now a decentralized planet consisting of different utopian and non-utopian societies, with Kallistrata's polis of Pella at the vanguard. However, as population started to grow, even the very rich (organically and inorganically) environment of Meizotere Hellas started to feel bit too narrow for all the societies. The most discontent of them all would be the libertarians, many under the unfortunate delusion that all other types of government involved initiation of force, and hence immoral. With the pacifists and pragmatic libertarians quickly squelched by the hawks, the libertarians started to pressure other city-states, particularly the socialist and communist ones. As the rhetoric grew more grating, many of the city-states had enough, and soon war erupted between the city-states of Meizotere Hellas. For the libertarians, this turn of events couldn't turn better, as they believed that initiation of force was a cardinal sin: and because the other city-states initiated force on them (i.e. attack), they could claim legitimacy of their actions, and hence mobilization of libertarian city-states went very quickly and very smoothly. Given their love of guns, their high marksmanship gave them an edge against the other folks not so happy about privately owned firearms, and soon libertarians started to dominate Meizotere Hellas. Growing overconfident, the libertarians provoked Kallistrata's Pella, which was still considered a reputable arbitrator amongst the Meizotere Hellas's city-states. Kallistrata soon had enough of the libertarians, and rallied the neutral city-states as well, which were by then disgusted by the dogmatism rampant among the right-wing dominated libertarian city-states. Now with numerical advantage and with constant guerilla attacks against the libertarians by the communists and the socialists, the libertarians eventually took heavy losses and were on brink of defeat. Given the rampant absolutism, they had no intention of capitulation, as they feared it meant a statist rule over them. So Kallistrata offered them the choice to leave on the original ship that took the exiles to Megale Hellas, and the libertarians chose to leave, effectively restoring peace within Meizotere Hellas. Now with Kallistrata gaining more reputation, many of the city-states offered Kallistrata a leadership position in a new league of city-states, to which Kallistrata accepted without hesitation. By then, Kallistrata grew weary of utopianism, and started to look much more pragmatically: the libertarian ruckus made Kallistrata distrustful of dogmatic and extremist political ideologies, and thus Kallistrata grew much less open to multiplicity of political thoughts. As a result, Kallistrata took to a campaign to remove such ideologies, marking them as xenophobic and hence barbarian. With each campaign Kallistrata's political clout grew, and it was only a matter of time before the city-states grew more reliant on Kallistrata's rule or eviscerated. This left Kallistrata the hegemon, and hence the Arche was born. Ruckus at Polysiton ''Also see: Demokratidai '' Culture and Technology Culturally speaking, Arche Philhellenike pursues modernization of the Ancient Greek culture, which is a direct result of the Greek heritage of Kallistrata Pellaia and the Strategoi as a whole. Arche Philhellenike is the leader in transhumanist thoughts and works, led by Kallistrata. To that matter, Kallistrata's disdain for atavistic desires stemmed from Kallistrata's origins, as well as the time spared from thinking or engaging in it to be spent in more productive manners, have translated into the general disdain for sex in the transhumanist circles. As a significant portion of the original residents of the initial colonization of Meizotere Hellas were castrated, artificial humans have been essential in maintaining human population in Arche Philhellenike, further reducing the position of sex in the Imperial culture. To further supplement the workforce, Arche is a regular employer and manufacturer of androids as well as less advanced robots. Disdain for sex in the Arche stems from the fact that a good number of the initial settlers who weren't castrated were sexual deviants, and thus many of them had STDs. In fact, it was the strong demonization of sex (which wasn't difficult given the ever-so-present fear of STDs) and the rise of artificial population replenishing method to prominence that curbed STD from the residents of Meizotere Hellas. Given the indispensibility of artificial augmentation of the workforce including but not limited to cybernetics and artificial life, Kallistrata's brand of Transhumanism has been given an official status of a cult in the Arche, and it is a leading academic force in the Phrontisterion of Meizon Pella in the form of the Mechanical College. Military technology is a big factor in the Arche, and a large portion of the Phrontisterion, including the Mechanical College, spends at least some portion of the resources to improving the military wares of the Arche to ward off the ever-so-vigorous libertarians of the Tropas Libre. In fact, the economic requisition to military is just as pronouced as the academic efforts, and military-industrial complex occupies a huge portion of the industrial portion of Meizon Pella, which composes a great portion of the metropolitan area. This translates into spilled benefits to the private industries, particularly the electronic capital: computing systems are commonplace in the Arche, especially at Meizotere Hellas, although colonies, such as Anatole, are also gaining centers of technology as well. Units The Arche uses the standard SI units in everyday use, although the Arche also uses the Hellenic units such as stadion as well. Nonetheless, the usage of Hellenic units is largely limited to small-scale intraplanetary matter, while scientific, engineering, and extra-planetary matters will be handled with SI units. Arche uses the drachma as the base unit of currency. The Imperial drachma is not like the ancient drachma in that the drachma is not fixed to a standard wage system (i.e. 1 drachma for a day's work), although it is still fixed to price of a unit weight of a metal. Currently, 1 drachma is equivalent to .356720 (± .000000323) kg of gold. The higher and lower units of currency mirrors that of the ancient Greeks. However, the 3rd lowest denomination (and the lowest in the classical world), the lepton, is clearly defined as one 96th of a drachma. There are additional units; the Megethon, equivalent to thousand Talanton, the Paroikos, equivalent to 1/50th of a lepton, and the Hekatonakes, equivalent to 1/100th of a Paroikos. There are subdivisions of the lepton to reflect the rather high value of the drachma, divided into units of 60. As of June 28, 2013, the price of gold was around 39.52$ per g. As such, it can be concluded that the approximate value of an Imperial Drachma is $14,100, although the gold prices recently went up from a few days. Given the enormous value of an Imperial Drachma, the smallest units, the Paroikos and Hekatonakes, are the most commonly used currency in daily use. Oikonomia Arche Philhellenike operates on a mixed economy, having both a state-owned component, which is technically led by a bureaucratic body but effectively influenced by the board of experts and economists put in place to minimize the problem associated with bureaucratic boggling that ruined planned economies such as that of the USSR. The military-industrial complex occupies a fairly large portion of the Arche's GDP. The overall policy is fairly similar to Lenin's New Economic Policy, and hence a good chunk of heavy industry, mostly allocated to producing military and aerospace goods, belongs to the government, but smaller industries, such as food processing, would be almost entirely under private hands, although businesses are regulated largely at the safety aspects. As government controls most of spacefaring ship constructing capital, shipping is one of the ways government earns revenue, either by renting cargo ships to private enterprises, or if the private enterprise was wealthy enough, sell cargo ships to the said enterprise. Likewise, government also comprises a huge part of its financial market, which is due to its policy of providing low-interest loans to hopeful entrepreneurs, as well as its stringent regulation that discouraged a large private entity from playing a big role in the financial market. As an economy with socialist roots, it does inherit the USSR problem of a lower focus on consumer goods (meaning price of living is quite high). However, given the system that encourages private endeavors to fill the gap, the Arche's consumer good market is much better than that of the USSR. Likewise, Arche also boasts one of the highest human capital in Segmentum Asia (as did USSR in Cold War), being the host of some of its most renowned academic facilities, most of which are affiliated with the Phrontisterion of Meizon Pella. However, the small businesses also are somewhat difficult to regulate as many come and go, and consumer trust isn't too high unless certification is given. Despite this, consumer trust isn't as low as one would expect from a relatively socialist economy. On the other hand, since certification is virtually necessary for a survival of a newly-born business, there is a phenomenon dubbed "nascent hell," which denotes a time of poor business between its creation and before the first regulatory visit by the government regulatory agency. As a whole, Arche is a net exporter and a net investor, and its biggest trade relationship is with the Polysitonian powers. Amongst the Spheres, galakoi are so popular that many Arche commentators call galakoi the Sphere opium, and also a factor in keeping it black while the Arche purchases say Libane timber and Heliopolitan stone for construction in Anatole. Arche's second biggest trading partner is the Baekryeoh, not surprising given their early contact. With the Baekryeoh, the Arche is a net investor, although in terms of import/export, the Arche is much more even. Arche trades with all other "civilized" factions, including the ever-hated Tropas Libre. However, the trade with the other nations except those listed is largely minimal and/or informal. Banking The financial aspect of the overall Imperial economic policy has been a mixed result: small businesses were easy to make, and investment spending in capital is the highest in Segmentum Asia. In exchange, cutthroat competition is quite rampant given the easy availability of loans, and Arche also ranks #1 in loan failures (however, it is a bit ambiguous, as large loans aimed at starting a business usually fail, although microloans rarely fail, very much like the case with Grameen Bank), although poverty remains low and thankfully unlikely to be life-threatening due to a solid social netting. Category:Factions Military Militarywise, the Arche Philhellenike prefers heavily armored and armed troops in general. In fact, a standard force involves the very well-equipped Philhellenikoi Epibatai, wearing heavy ceramic armor based on the Hellenic linothorax. Its contact with the Baekryeoh kingdom of the Handan planet allowed them to develop the Bolos Patagikos rifle, which was derived partly from the Singijeon-launcher of the Baekryeoh kingdom. They are known to field Technopharmakeis. Arche's weaponries often emphasize heavy firepower over mobility, not surprising as the backbone of the Arche infantry is the Philhellenikoi Epibatai who are heavily armored themselves and the armor designed for heavy weapons. Two most popular squad support weapons are the Bolos Patagikos Barys, which shoots larger slugs than the standard Bolos, and the Hieropatagos, an energy-based weapon that causes an explosion at the target through transfer of high amounts of thermal energy via a white-hot beam. However, this does not result in a rigid military structure. Sure, Arche does employ phalanx-like inflexible yet strong approach to a portion of its army, but the Arche uses a diverse mix of troops nonetheless. While Arche's native weapon development favored heavy fire support, it still has multiple more mobile elements in the army, most notably the Hetairoi, who are motorized infantry on hovercycles much akin to those employed by the Polysitonians. In-Game Appearance Cyan Sphere of Doom: Galactic War and Imperium Novum Arche does not appear in the game, although the prototype, the Demokratidai, were planned to appear on the expansion that never came to be. Cyan Sphere of Doom: Commoners' Legion The Arche is one of the two new factions to be introduced into the game alongside Tropas Libre. The Arche fills the powerhouse archetype, having the strongest base infantry in the game, the Philhellenikoi Epibatai, and continues to follow the path to superior firepower in the form of the Bathron Hoplikon. The Arche also has strong strike options, such as the Theristes UAV, and good logistics, having the 3-d printing technology which is also present in Tropas Libre. Infantry *Skopoi Epibatai *Philhellenikoi Epibatai *Neophytai Hieromachoi *Thorakitai Argyraspidai *Hieromachoi *Authentai Commanders *Taxiarches *Hiereus *Technopharmakeis Vehicles *Bathron Hoplikon *Charon *Hyperetes *Theros Robotics/Aircraft *Theristes *Promachos *Mantis *Nomarches Structures *Bouleterion *Naos-Strategeion *Skeuotheke *Phrourion *Stele *Mylon *Ergasterion *Battle Lab *Stoa Kybernetike *Naos Mechanikon *Orbital Relay Category:Factions